Clearance sales were underway Friday at many of the 146 Canadian Blockbuster Video stores that are closing their doors.

The movie and video game rental chain announced May 24 that the closures would take place next month.

In one store in Toronto, a manager said more than a dozen customers were hunting for bargains shortly after the store opened, but none of them had lined up to get there early.

The shutdown will mean about 1,400 employees could lose their jobs.

Ontario will be most affected, but every province will lose at least one outlet.

Blockbuster Canada is being sold off to pay $70 million US in debt owed by its former U.S. parent, after the Canadian division served as a guarantor for the American business. The U.S. company went into bankruptcy protection and was later sold at auction to another owner.

video rental is pretty much a dying business. With netflix and being able to 'buy' new movies on your own TV through cable providers, services offered by the likes Blockbuster are pretty much useless. For a rental to be successful it really has to have some obscure shit and has to have a good solid market of people looking for obscure shit. Kind of like Queen video. I use them.

video rental is pretty much a dying business. With netflix and being able to 'buy' new movies on your own TV through cable providers, services offered by the likes Blockbuster are pretty much useless. For a rental to be successful it really has to have some obscure shit and has to have a good solid market of people looking for obscure shit. Kind of like Queen video. I use them.

Yeah, i'll be getting Netflix. I've still been getting movies from blockbuster and even renting games for my ps3 at times.

How about Downoading movies. That is dfef the main reason why they are closing.
Cant believe no one has mentioned it.
I go to the theatres at least twice a month, but as fro renting, I ussually download my movies.

Netflix has some pretty bad movie choices. I thought when I tried the free trial, I would find almost every popular movie out on DVD. They make it sound like it. I tried the free trial, watched like 3 movies and Mad Men. The rest was just...

Blockbuster US did and then was bought out by Dish Network. To cover their US debts, they found that their Canadian branch had assets in the range of 15 million. So that's why they're shutting it down.